In 2016, Sunil Rajaraman wrote a satirical essay titled ‘This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley’ for the tech-heavy, San Francisco-based online magazine The Bold Italic. Within days the article was trending on social media with hundreds of comments and nearly a million page views. In this Taboo Tuesday, Sunil talks with Dr. Emily about the anxiety he experienced as a successful entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, and how he’s learned to shift his relationship to it.

Staying emotionally fit takes work and repetition. That's why the Emotionally Fit podcast with psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt delivers short, actionable Emotional Push-Ups every Monday and Thursday to help you build a better practice of mental health, and surprising, funny, and shocking conversations on Taboo Tuesdays - because the things we’re most hesitant to talk about are also the most normal. Join us to kickstart your emotional fitness. Let's flex those feels and do some reps together!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Follow Sunil on Twitter 

Listen to Sunil’s podcast This is Your Life in Silicon Valley

Read This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley by Sunil Rajaraman - The Bold Italic

Thank you for listening! Follow Dr. Emily on Twitter, and don’t forget to follow, rate, review and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts! #EmotionallyFit 

The Emotionally Fit podcast is produced by Coa, your gym for mental health. Katie Sunku Wood is the show’s producer from StudioPod Media with additional editing and sound design by nodalab, and featuring music by Milano. Special thanks to the entire Coa crew!

JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

(02:01) - How ‘This Is Your Life In Silicon Valley’ changed Sunil’s life and career - “I put up the piece and then 24 hours later it started to get traction. I had never experienced true virality before. This was nuts. This was like almost a million page views in days. It was crazy.”

(05:26) - Cue the Anxiety Attacks - “There's a face that you put on for investors. There's a face that you put on for employees. Then there's the face that you try to put on at home. And then there's other parts of you that you just try to compartmentalize here and there. Eventually that can't hold.”

(11:12) - Self-stigmatization and why we should be more open about struggling with mental health - “In the process of going through therapy, you say stuff out loud that sounds weird at first. And then you're like ‘Wait a second. This isn't weird. This is who you are. And it's totally okay’.”

(15:54) - Addiction and substance abuse - “It's all a spectrum. Pretty much anything that can bring good into our lives, when used incorrectly or in the wrong amount, ends up hurting us.”

(17:25) - How going to therapy has helped Sunil - “You do say things out loud about yourself that can kind of feel uncomfortable, but I can now say out loud, ‘I like writing and I like when people read my writing’ and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.” 

(20:58) - The downsides to social media, FOMO and constant comparison - “The feeling of wanting more, rather than owning what you are and being happy with it. It's very different. I still struggle with it.” 

You learn very quickly to compartmentalize. There's a face that you put on for investors. There's a face that you put on for employees. Then there's a face that you try to put on at home. And then eventually that can't hold. Becomes very, very hard. In retrospect, people could see cracks and I was cracking. That is for sure.

Welcome to Taboo Tuesday on the Emotionally Fit Podcast. I'm Dr. Emily Anhalt, and I've always loved talking about taboo subjects, sex, money, drugs, death, because being a therapist has taught me that the feelings we're most hesitant to talk about are also the most normal. So join me as we flex our feels by diving into things you might not say out loud, but you're definitely not the only one thinking.

Quick disclaimer that nothing in this podcast should be taken as professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Because while I am a therapist, I'm not your therapist and I'm not my guest's therapist. So this is intended only to spark interesting conversation. Thanks for tuning in.

Hey, there Fit fans. I'm here today with Sunil Rajaraman. Sunil is a serial entrepreneur and writer based in the Bay Area, and he is currently VP of Marketing at GoodRx, but he's probably best known for his writing about Silicon Valley for The Bold Italic, a series, Called This Is Your Life In Silicon Valley. Plus the podcast he launched based on that writing. Today, we're talking about what it means to have anxiety attacks. Welcome Sunil, it is such an honor to have you here.

It's really great to be here. Thanks for having me.

We've known each other for a little while. We were on a panel together for how to increase mental health support at work.

Yeah, that was really fun. I actually bonded with all the panelists and everybody was pretty authentic.

Yeah. I had a great time. And that was the first time I really learned about your story. And I got to know you a little bit better. So one of the things you're well known for is having written this amazing article called This Is Your Life In Silicon Valley. I think it went fairly viral. I'm curious, is this the moment you went viral? Did this change the course of your occupational life in a major way?

It's funny, before I wrote that piece, I co-founded a company but this piece is what I'm known for. And I definitely credit it with a lot of opportunity that opened up for sure.

So for those of you who haven't read this article, This Is Your Life In Silicon Valley. I highly recommend it, especially if you are involved in the world of tech in any way, shape or form, whether you're in Silicon Valley or not. What I love so much about it is as you're reading it, it seems like satire, it seems like it's a parody of being in the world of tech, but really it's actually pretty damn accurate. I read it and thought, oh, yep, that's true. That's true. Hit almost a little too close to home. I'm curious, what inspired you to put all of this down on paper in one place?

It started as a text message conversation between myself and two very close friends. We're all married at the same stage of life, couple of young kids. We were just in our little group text thread, riffing on the absurdity of life here and all the things that we go through related to childcare, real estate, all of the basic barrier conversations. And that eventually turned into me just sitting down, connecting it through a storyline. And that turned into the first piece. And I think now I've written about 15 pieces in the series and all of them have generated many millions of page views. So they do resonate and it's because of exactly what you said: they hit a little too close to home.

Yeah. And I think as is relevant for this conversation, I've seen a lot from working with people in tech that success and mental health struggles have an indirect correlation in some ways, but they also have a direct correlation in other ways. There is a dark side to success and especially success that comes at you in ways and forms that maybe you weren't suspecting, but what was it like for you seeing the response to it and having it out in the world?

It actually caused some anxiety. So I remember that feeling distinctly, like it was yesterday. I put up the piece and then 24 hours later, it started to get traction. And I had never experienced true virality before, this was nuts. This was like almost a million page views in days. It was crazy. Like my phone just started going nuts. And it was because my username was trending on Twitter and I was getting all these pings, and this and that, and these DMs, and honestly, I just didn't know how to react. So I just watched it, I was an observer in my own life, I don't know, week long period where it went nuts.

People want that so badly. I feel like people devote huge chunks of their day trying to create content that will go viral. It actually happened to you. What was it like? Is it all positive? Was there a dark side to it?

Yeah. You get people coming up out of the woodwork. I think for that first piece in particular, a lot of people didn't understand it was satire. And I got some weird responses. I remember one or two, and it was funny the author of The Bell Curve. I think he's a figure in the kind of ... I don't want to say alt right world, but he didn't understand it was satire, and he tweeted it out and it has nothing to do with his political views or anything like that. But it was a funny tweet to get from him that he read the article and didn't understand it was satire. Such a smart guy.

One of the things that I think this article did bring attention to is the emotional rollercoaster that is startup life. And I think that's one that you know really well. So I'm curious if you can tell me a little bit about what that felt like for you when that rollercoaster eventually led you to this place where you had your first anxiety attack?

Yeah. I, like many in the startup world, viewed my life in terms of fundraising rounds. So it was 2011 when my company scripted a marketplace for businesses to hire freelance writers. We raised our first outside capital and it felt like the biggest deal in the world. And I wanted to continue up this forward path. And so if you're an entrepreneur in the Silicon Valley, you think about, okay, I raised a seed round, how do I get to my series A, then eventually my series B, and then eventually you're going to go up into the right and IPO. And so I viewed my life in those terms. So from seed to 2012, that was when things started to kind of get a bit rough. My wife was also part of a startup that was fast growing, we were expecting our first kid, and in the midst of raising that series A was when I first experienced an anxiety attack, but it felt like a heart attack. I guess that's the short summary of how it felt.

Like a heart attack physically. What did it feel like emotionally?

Yeah, it was paralyzing. I couldn't do anything. In my head, I was just locked and it feels like you're stuck and trapped inside of your brain. And so I would characterize it more by the lack of emotion, rather than feeling emotion at all. It regresses you to your pure animal instincts of survival, like you're being attacked and you feel like it's a near death experience.

And then, so that was the first of what I understand is many.

Oh yeah, yeah. It's interesting because I had experienced anxiety before, not an outright attack like that. And so like many Americans post 9/11, I had a fear of flying, and that culminated within 2004, I was on a flight to Chicago that had to take an emergency landing because somebody on the airplane literally had a heart attack and passed. So I remember being on that flight and hearing the huge thud thinking it was something wrong with the plane. After that incident, a doctor prescribed me with Xanax, which is a short acting anxiety medication to help me in situations where, hey, you're on an airplane flight, take this if it feels like it's too much. But what I did in that 2012 anxiety attack, which made me realize that it was anxiety, was I had that bottle of Xanax that I used situationally, and I took a quarter of a milligram of it. And that feeling of a heart attack went away. And then I realized, oh, okay, this is a familiar feeling. This is what I experience on airplanes. It's not a heart attack. It's just anxiety.

How confusing if the last time you experienced a lot of anxiety on an airplane was when someone had an actual heart attack and died. That is a lot of scary things to put all together.

Yeah. I hadn't quite connected that until this conversation. But yeah, that's exactly right, is I connected all of those feelings together, pretty terrible feeling.

So you have this first anxiety attack. I think the first one can often be the scariest because you don't know what's happening to you. Took the meds, it temporarily helped. What happened then?

I started to have more of them. And so I just assumed it was related to work stress and it was something that okay, yeah. Going through a lot, this is just going to happen from time to time. What's interesting is it's not like the next day I experienced one, or the day after that, or the day after that even. It was, I would say between the first and second one, it was probably a span of weeks if memory serves. There's one that was particularly memorable, that was also that same year where I was driving in a car, and I felt like I couldn't get to my destination because I was experiencing those heart attack-like feelings again.

And I called my parents and I told them, "Hey, can you just stay on the phone with me? I'm going to come down. I want to make sure this is nothing. Whatever." They stayed on the phone with me, I drove to a doctor, gave me an EKG and said, "This is all in your head. It's clearly not a heart problem. And so you can kind of continue to take the Xanax as you experience these situations because it doesn't sound like it's happening daily or whatever." But then they started to increase.

The anxiety attacks did?

Yeah. In frequency to the point where I was becoming more and more reliant on the Xanax. And that first bottle went away. And what happens then, you call in and you ask for a refill. And then I actually think it made my anxiety much, much worse. Those are potent drugs that I would hate to see anyone who can avoid it, rely on. I know that some people really need it, but that stuff is just so bad for you and you become so dependent on it.

It's tough too, because it has a withdrawal effect. So you actually feel anxious coming off of it. And then the crazy thing about anxiety is anxiety begets anxiety. So the more anxiety you have, the more you start to worry about getting anxiety until just the worry of the panic attack happening can throw you into one.

That happened to me a lot. And so when the anxiety started to get more frequent, I started to take more medication and became more reliant on it. And to the point where you put it exactly right. Anxiety begets anxiety. And so you become reliant on this medication on a daily basis. And that was where I was at 2013, 2014.

So I'm going to have you zoom out a little bit and talk about what did it mean to you that you were suffering from these anxiety attacks? Like, how did you think about yourself? What did it mean that you were a person who was running a company and also struggling so much with these debilitating attacks?

You learn very quickly to compartmentalize. There's a face that you put on for investors. There's a face that you put on for employees. Then there's a face that you try to put on at home. And then there's other parts of you that you just try to compartmentalize here and there. Eventually that can't hold, becomes very, very hard, but the medication essentially helped me to try to compartmentalize or gave me the false assumption that I was. In retrospect, people could see cracks and I was cracking. That is for sure.

Did it feel like you stigmatized yourself for your own struggle?

Oh yeah. Without question. When you take that stuff and when you're kind of going through situations like that, it's not like you feel good about yourself. You actually feel pretty bad about yourself. And when you feel bad about yourself, anytime you make a mistake, you feel worse about yourself and you feel like you're actually not that strong of a person. And so you just go feeling worse and worse about yourself. And then the other part about that is you actually assume that other people are doing better. And so it makes you less likely to want to share what's going on with you. I became a master of that, is just holding everything in, having it come out in my head and it not feeling good.

Yeah. It's fascinating that I can't think of anything that's more indicative of the human condition than wanting to feel like we're not alone. And yet during our dark times, we are really good at convincing ourself that we are all alone in something, that we're the only one who feels something, the only one who experiences something, that no one would understand, that everyone would judge us. It's crazy how good we are when we need the opposite the most.

I wish I had a better support group of people who believed in me. Quite frankly, one of the things that would've helped is having a podcast like this. People are searching for normalcy in their lives. And so there's no way to benchmark, particularly when it comes to taboo subjects, anxiety attacks, or even finances. These are things that people are ashamed to talk about and it's too bad because if we all knew and we all talked about it, we'd realize that pretty much, there is no such thing as a concept of normal. We're all going through various degrees of tough times and good times and medium, it's just benchmarking, it would've been helpful, a stronger support group would've been helpful. For my part, I probably could've been a lot more transparent with people and not felt the need to compartmentalize for sure. But I definitely wish I had a better support group of people that I could be open with.

Yeah. If there's one thing I've learned as a therapist and also as a patient, it's that there is something very powerful about just saying something out loud and being witnessed and realizing that the voice inside your head is not telling the whole truth.

So true. And yeah, until you really go through that process. Of course, the silver lining in the story is I did finally discover therapy and I haven't had an anxiety attack in five years now, essentially. That was a positive that came out of this process. But yeah, in the process of going through therapy, you say stuff out loud that sounds weird at first. And then you're like, wait a second. This isn't weird. This is who you are.

It's human.

And that's totally okay.

Yeah. I'm curious. Why do you think something like having anxiety, having panic attacks is so taboo, so stigmatized? What do you think it is that makes people feel like they can't talk about it or shouldn't?

I think in my case, there's probably a lot of cultural drivers. So if you're South Asian and you're listening to this podcast, particularly of a certain age band, people don't seek mental health. I think this is true of a lot of Asian communities. I think any mental health issues are viewed as defects. And so therefore I think a lot of people go undiagnosed, suffer for years and think it's totally fine. And like, oh yeah, just power through. That's the culture.

Like it's that easy.

Yeah. I think you're viewed as weak. I mean, even the people who say in some of the Asian communities that, "Oh yeah, therapy is great. It's okay." They don't actually believe it. They don't buy into it. I think that's still true. I wouldn't go to a party with people in my parents' generation. Of course, my parents know that I go to therapy now and they're cool with it. But if I were in a room full of people of their generation, it's not something I would talk about probably still to this day. And I think a lot of it is culturally driven.

Yeah. That makes sense. Though it sounds like even as there's this part of you that feels like you're not supposed to need it, that it made a huge difference in your struggle.

Yeah. Now I just go to these parties and I think, wow, these people should all be in therapy.

Well, obviously I think everybody should be in therapy.

That's true. That is 100% true. I think everybody should be in therapy.

Everybody goes to the doctor every year. Why aren't we forcing our children to visit a psychologist once a year for a checkup? And then as we get older and have emotional struggles that you see a therapist on a regular basis. It blows my mind that it's not the norm.

Yeah. I completely agree. It was definitely one tool of many that I use to process my anxiety. And I do give it a big part of the credit for not experiencing anxiety attacks anymore.

Yeah. It sounds like you also changed your diet, exercised, treated your body better.

Yeah. I definitely exercised a lot. I was an athlete in college and I'm a competitive person. And for me being able to work out in these group sessions, et cetera, it gave me that good feeling again of just competitiveness and getting the adrenaline going. And then I used to probably go out as like release valve. So I was never like a frequent drinker, but when I did drink, I like to go out. And that was my way of releasing. There were times where I was like, particularly around the anxiety time, where I was a much more frequent drinker. And when you mix that stuff with the anxiety medication, let's just say the outcome is, it's not good at all. It's really bad. It's horrendous.

Yeah. I never cease to be amazed by the amount of suffering people are willing to endure to avoid facing some original source of suffering. If we could just face the pain of being human and the things that we experienced right away, instead of trying to numb them, and escape them, and avoid them, then we would end up avoiding the much bigger amount of suffering we often end up feeling as a result of the drinking, and the numbing, and the avoiding.

Yeah. And we all have our drug of choice. And so you'll have your disclaimer before this podcast about this not being construed as medical advice. I just want to state an opinion if that's all right, which is, I think all of the stuff around even medical marijuana, this stuff in general, I know we're living in a city where that's becoming very trendy. I think for sure, it probably makes sense for a lot of people for various medical conditions. But I do think there's probably some subset of the population that probably shouldn't be using that stuff that does, like many other things. Because unfortunately there's a lot of different ways to numb out there, whether it's alcohol, marijuana, anti-anxiety medication, and having to face the issues is much harder on your own.

Yeah. It's all spectrum, pretty much anything that can bring good into our lives when used incorrectly or in the wrong amount ends up hurting us.

It's literally the statement I was trying to make. You said it in a much more concise way.

So let me ask, how has your relationship to this taboo topic changed? Do you seem to speak about it so thoughtfully now and without any hesitation? What do you think has shifted there?

It's actually, I think part of my ongoing process is talking about, whereas before I didn't talk about it at all. I actually find talks like this helpful because you're always processing. And so actually, this interview is just a reminder to me, of oh yeah. I am still processing. So as I'm talking to you, I'm still processing.

I'm a big believer in the idea that our struggles define us in a really important way. I'm curious, being on the other side of these anxiety attacks, you had said you don't get them anymore, you haven't in a really long time, what positive thing have they brought to your life or has confronting whatever they were trying to tell you done for your life?

It's created this self-awareness that I didn't have before, and why that's good is it helps me help people too. And I view that as a very big positive, it helps me understand what people are going through and really deeply empathize with them. And that's something that I love doing. I just like helping people. And if I can make somebody feel better about themselves, just in my day to day interactions or be a better friend, that's something I like. All of my best writing happened after therapy. And one of the things about therapy that I hope that many of you get to experience this process if you haven't or aren't already, you do say things out loud about yourself, that can kind of feel uncomfortable.

But I can say out loud, I like writing. And I like when people read my writing. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it's great. And I do take pride in the fact that millions of people have read the writing. I mean, I think, whereas that's something I might have been ashamed to admit before. I like writing for an audience and I get a kick out of it. I love it. Gaining that self-awareness has actually, in the process, helped me become a better writer and do other things like that. I like having this perspective on life that people appreciate.

I feel like there's this weird phenomenon where everybody wants to be seen. Of course, we do. And social media is making it so much easier to try to do that. And it's as though it's this terrible thing to enjoy it when you get it. We all want people to look at us and validate us. That's just how human beings are. And there's this weird shame you feel when you feel good about it.

Yeah, yeah. This notion that vanity is bad and so on and so forth. But my gosh, I know so many people who are boomers or whatever. Okay, boomer. We shouldn't do that thing here. That if they had social media, when they were growing up, they would've been absolutely insufferable. So it's like, people can say all they want, but it's connecting with people. And it's that knowing that something you say resonates with people is a really powerful feeling. And I think experiencing that is cool.

It is. And I'm really appreciative that you are sharing both sides of it, your success, and also your struggles. I think successful people talking openly about their success rather than feeling like they're supposed to pretend it doesn't exist, and being clear about what got them that success, and when things didn't go their way is really important to give a more realistic idea to people who are still on that journey.

I appreciate that feedback. Yeah, no, you should own your success and own your failures for sure. And so you're hearing the one side of it, but part of my process in therapy was owning my failures and forgiving myself for them in a lot of ways. That's something that was really hard and took a long time, took a long time.

Yeah. I don't think we're very good at forgiving ourselves.

We aren't. And the default is to beat ourselves up and particularly in this area, or if you're listening to this from any urban area, you look at yourself compared to other people. If you're not climbing the ladder as fast as them, you're a failure, and you feel like you're not on a trajectory, then just view yourself as not good. And that sucks. You shouldn't feel that way.

Yeah. Let me take this opportunity as a therapist who's gotten to see the inner workings of a lot of people's mind, that every single human being worries that they're not good. It's just the most universal thing I can think of. And I think we all are. I think we're all doing our best.

We're all doing our best. And at every level, it's this constant comparison. And I do think that obviously there has been some bad things that have come out of social media. And one of the things that is unfortunate is this constant reminder, or this feeling that is generated, that people are doing better than you. I don't think that that was the intention. Like I just don't think that was the way it was, but it is designed that way. And so there is a large portion of people who might look at it and say, well, that person is doing better than me. And it happens at every single level. I'm working on this thing, somebody's working on something slightly better, or who knows what the billionaire conversations are like. I'm worth one, that other person's worth three.

Yeah. Jim Carey has a quote that I love. He says, "I wish every single person could get rich and famous and have everything they ever wanted so they can see that it's not the answer."

It's just the feeling of wanting more rather than owning what you are and being happy with it. So it's very different. I still struggle with it. So again, I'm processing here as I'm talking to you, but we all struggle with it and it's okay if you feel that way. There's nothing wrong with that, I want to reiterate that. But you shouldn't feel that way.

Yeah. We're all in that together. So Sunil, thank you so much for having this conversation with me, for being so candid and open about your experience. I know there are a lot of people listening who have had similar experiences, who maybe feel a little less alone now as a result. The way I like to close things out is I have made a list of a handful of really personal questions. I'm going to give you this list. Pick whichever one you want and read it out loud and answer it.

Okay. This is a really good list of questions.

Thank you.

And I almost want to pick multiple, but I really like this format of picking one. And as a listener of this show, let me just tell you that these are some pretty juicy questions. If you could have $10 million right now, but you are never allowed to make another penny, would you take it? Yeah, fuck yeah, I would take it. Come on. You know what? I think that I would take it and I will totally own that answer. Of course, I'm divided by my cultural belief that okay, money is hard earned, et cetera. But 10 million in the Bay Area would be pretty nice. It would be pretty good.

It'd also go pretty quick though. You have to be savvy enough to figure out how to make it work for you to last the entire rest of your life.

Yeah. But I would take those problems, and so I will fully admit that I would take the money.

Nice. Thank you. It's been such a pleasure to have you here. I'm sure this conversation will continue and I wish you all of the best.

Thanks for having me.

Take care, Sunil.

Thanks for listening to Emotionally Fit, hosted by me, Dr. Emily Anhalt. New Taboo Tuesdays drop every other week. How did today's taboo subject land with you? Tweet your experience with the hashtag Emotionally Fit and follow me at Dr. Emily Anhalt.

Please rate, review, follow, and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts. This podcast is produced by Coa, your gym for mental health, where you can take live therapist led classes online. From group sessions to therapist matchmaking, Coa will help you build your emotional fitness routine. Head to joincoa.com. That's joincoa.com to learn more and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Join COA. From StudioPod Media in San Francisco, our producer is Katie Sunku Wood. Music is by Milano. Special thanks to the entire Coa crew.